17 November 2011

The “Occupy” movement, which began as a small gathering in a private park near Wall Street in New York City in September, has already swept across America and into another dozen countries around the world.

While these gatherings are local, their concerns are global. They are responding to economic and social trends that have been developing for decades. But the catalyst was the financial collapse of 2008.In the aftermath of that collapse, what has become clear to many Americans­­ -- following aggressive bailouts for the banks but inaction on lost jobs and homes -- is that the nation’s economic system functions differently depending on which side of this divide you are on.

People in the top 1%, for example, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), between 1979 and 2007 saw their pretax income grow by an average of 275%. That’s an average increase of $700,000. People in the lower 90%, however, saw their pre-tax income actually fall by $900 for the same period.

As a result the CBO reports that now 1% of Americans control 35% of the nation’s wealth, which is the highest level of wealth disparity since 1929, the last great financial crash.

Occupy supporters advocate for the “99%ers," their now-famous shorthand for the majority of Americans. These are the people who increasingly find themselves with under-water mortgages and dangerously depleted savings. And with persistent 9% unemployment, they are just as likely to be out of work as out of their homes.

But when they look to Washington, what they find is gridlock. Most solutions include severe spending cuts, which many economists warn will likely result in a replay of the Hoover Administration’s policies of the early 1930s that only deepened that generation’s Depression.

And lawmakers are not the only bad actors. While the financial fallout continues to be borne by the victims of the crisis, those on Wall Street and elsewhere who created the mess have kept their profits without ever being held to account.

Unlike with the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, today -- after three years and hundreds of investigations -- not a single criminal charge has been filed by the Justice Department, the SEC, or any state Attorney General against a major figure in the financial industry.

For the Occupy movement, all of these developments are interrelated.

Financial and corporate interests hold the money and the influence they buy. That influence has produced the kind of tax code and financial deregulation that, over time, have lead directly to the huge economic imbalances which Occupy exposes.

Critics charge that the movement to date has no agenda to address all it decries. The Occupiers respond that, since the movement is barely 60 days old, the criticism is premature. But more than that, with their bottom-up approach, the process by which solutions are arrived at, they believe, is equally important as the solutions themselves.

It’s impossible to know now how public opinion will ultimately judge this effort. From my perspective, however, the movement at this early stage is similar to the lunch-counter-sit-in stage of the 1960s protests in the South. Except this time the demonstrators are fighting for economic, rather than civil, rights.

The loud turmoil and resulting media scrutiny is similar to those days 50 years ago, but it is also likely that someone is already at work on his or her own “I Have a Dream” speech.

[In the Sixties, Bill Freeland was a contributor to The Rag in Austin and Liberation News Service in New York. Read more articles by Bill Freeland on The Rag Blog.]

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BOOKS / Alan Wieder : Paul Buhle's 'Radical Jesus: A Graphic History of Faith' by Alan Wieder / The Rag Blog. Noted historian Paul Buhle, who has published an acclaimed series of nonfiction comics, is one of the most prolific and insightful critics from the American left. "Radical Jesus," which communicates the social message of Jesus Christ in comic format, investigates the inequalities that exist in the world through a theological lens.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow : Israel, Hillel, and Idolatry by Rabbi Arthur Waskow / The Rag Blog. Hillel International, the "home" for many Jewish college students of diverse backgrounds and beliefs, has been beset with controversy about when uncritical support among American Jews for Israel becomes "idolatry of the State."

Paul Krassner : Is There a Doctor in the House? by Paul Krassner / The Rag Blog. The Coachella Valley in Southern California hosted a massive four-day health clinic that helped more than 2,500 uninsured patients. Krassner points out that California leads the nation in people without health insurance and says that "the insurance industry has a preexisting condition known in technical terminology as greed."

Kate Braun : Winter Solstice Falls on Saturn's Day by Kate Braun / The Rag Blog. Our celebrations during the Winter Solstice take from many traditions, including the Roman Saturnalia, Druid customs, the German "Yule," and the birth of Jesus; and it was Queen Victoria who popularized the lighted Christmas tree.

Allen Young : Ralph Dungan, the 'Good Liberal' by Allen Young / The Rag Blog. A recent obituary of Ralph Dungan, one of President John F. Kennedy's top aides who later served as ambassador to Chile, reminds Allen of a revealing experience he had with the man referred to by a historian as a "good liberal."

Ed Felien : A Good [Angry White] Man With a Gun by Ed Felien / The Rag Blog. Paul Anthony Ciancia considered himself a "good man with a gun" -- a warrior against the traitors who were taking over our government, bankrupting our currency, and trying to establish a New World Order -- when he walked into the Los Angeles airport and opened fire with an assault rifle.

Lamar W. Hankins : Right-Wing Rants and the Abominable Straw Man by Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog. The Internet is a marvelous tool when used honestly and correctly, and with recognition of its limitations. But it is also home to angry rants, often from the far right, that make ridiculous claims -- like the one (that actually originated on a satirical site) saying that the Obama administration was setting up gasoline stations to provide free gas to low-income [read: black] people.

Harry Targ : My Nelson Mandela by Harry Targ / The Rag Blog. An irony of 21st century historical discourse is how real historic figures -- like the late Nelson Mandela -- get lionized, sanitized, and redefined as defenders of the ongoing order rather than activists who committed their lives to revolutionary change.

Michael James : Back to Uptown, 1965-1966 by Michael James / The Rag Blog. Mike continues his remarkable memoir, accompanied -- and inspired by -- photos from his upcoming book. His adventures -- and the making of an activist -- continue as he heads back to Uptown Chicago, "progressing along my path with another left turn and a big step into America."

Alice Embree : Chile and the Politics of Memory by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog. Chileans went to the polls Sunday and appear to be reelecting Socialist president Michelle Bachelet on the 40th anniversary of the bloody U.S.-supported coup against Socialist president Salvador Allende. Alice writes about the dramatic contradictions in Chilean politics and history.

Paul Krassner : A Tale of Two Alternative Media Conferences by Paul Krassner / The Rag Blog. Paul remembers the original Alternative Media Conference in June 1970 at Goddard College in Vermont -- and it was a wild and wooly affair headlined by the likes of Ram Dass, Harvey Kurtzman, and Art Spiegelman -- as the college hosts another conference keynoted by progressive radio host Thom Hartmann.

Harry Targ : STEM and the Tyranny of the Meme by Harry Targ / The Rag Blog. From the fear of "falling behind the Soviets" to the missile gap and, more recently the wars on drugs and terrorism, the fear of falling behind some fictional adversaries is an ongoing "meme" used by economic, political, and military elites. The latest? Now it's the "STEM crisis" and the fear that we're falling behind other nations in science and technology .

Alice Embree : Anne Lewis' New Website Brings Austin Movement History to Life by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog. Noted documentary filmmaker Anne Lewis has created a website called Austin Beloved Community that uses audio, film, photos, maps, and personal recollections to create a "digital collage" about the struggle for social and economic justice in Austin from the 1880s to the present. Alice interviews Lewis about the unique project.

BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : Marc Myers Tells Us 'Why Jazz Happened' by Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog. Ron reviews a new book on America's own music in which Marc Myers "provides the reader with a deep, rich, and broad perspective on the confluence of jazz and U.S. history in the decades following World War Two."

David McReynolds : We Are All Wounded Veterans by David McReynolds / The Rag Blog. Long-time pacifist writer and activist McReynolds says there's something "infinitely sad" about the recent celebration of Veterans Day. "In the bad wars -- which are the only wars we have fought for some time now -- there is the terrible knowledge that the enemy was never really the enemy," he says.

Michael James : Going Off Campus, 1965 by Michael James / The Rag Blog. Mike continues to share experiences and images from his rich history as an activist and adventurer -- that will be published in an upcoming book, "Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul." Here Mike reports on the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, community organizing in Oakland, and his travels across the country in a 1957 Plymouth station wagon "drive-away."